Poor Flickr Uploadr. It just can’t help itself. It’s hinky as hell.
Fortunately, Flickr is so good at crafting a friendly user experience, they even get me to feel warm fuzzies about them when their app barfs.
Some of y’all might think it’s too precious by half. But it made me feel good, even though I couldn’t accomplish my goal. And that’s not nothing.
‘course, I’d rather that my pics uploaded. Flickr, fix that buggy OS X Uploadr. Pretty please?
From a printer manufactured (or probably more accurately, rebadged…) by a nameless large PC manufacturer based in the southwest….
This error message evokes cinematic, ominous drums beating in the distance, implying an impending massive onslaught.
At least it does for me. Your mileage may vary…
But seriously, this is a not-so-great error message for a couple of reasons:
And if you look at the available screen real estate, there’s clearly enough room for more information.
This is a good example of how to tell people about new or improved features. Yes, it’s a bit intrusive, but it’s easy to dismiss if you don’t want to look at it.
The dialog is clearly designed to entice me to investigate LinkedIn’s improvements. This is a good, if not-so-subtle pattern for notifying users about changes to your website.
This post originated from a response I wrote to a question on the list that dare not utter its name. Someone asked about whether ratings of usability issues should be ranked with an interval or ordinal scale. I thought the question was somewhat specious, because when you’re dealing with behavioral phenomena, claiming your measurement tool is interval vs. ordinal is a distinction without a difference.
What is important, however, is behaviorally anchoring your rating choices. That is, as much as possible you should base your usability severity ratings on observable – or well-defined inferable – criteria. There’s nothing earth-shatteringly new in this post, mind you. I’m just taking the highly non-controversial position that you should define your usability and user experience issue ratings using observable examplars of behavior.
You may notice that I do move off the reservation a bit when you read my rating definitions. I’ve included information about how a user experience issue could affect an organization’s brand equity and revenue as well. I’m not entirely satisfied with how I’ve lumped these (important but somewhat orthogonal) issues together with “straight” usability; I may break them out into separate ratings that accompany each usability issue. So my rating schema would work like this:
Anyway….here is my current set of behaviorally-anchored user experience issue ratings; feel free to borrow, modify, criticize, adapt, ignore, etc.
Critical
A critical usability issue will definitely result in a user not being able to complete their intended task. It will also result in an immediate, noticeable and significant impact to the organization’s brand equity, revenue and/or profitability.
High
A high severity usability issue is one that is likely to result in a user not being able to complete their intended task. From the business perspective, the issue is likely to negatively affect the organization’s brand, revenue, or profitability.
Medium
Medium severity usability issues include those that are likely to significantly impede or frustrate a user, but are not likely to prevent users from eventually accomplishing their task. They might also negatively affect the organization’s brand, revenue, or profitability.
Low
Low severity usability issues include those that are likely to present momentary or transient difficulty or confusion to users, but do not prevent users from accomplishing their task. There should be no effect on the organization’s brand or financials.
It’s all about context, yes. Some immensely complex UI’s are necessary in certain domains, for certain workflows. But sometimes you can just look at a UI and know that, for whoever its intended users are, it’s a horrible failure.
So it is with this Ferrari steering wheel. Via FastCompany and @JasonSpector, look upon the horror and of course watch the vid. Bonus points for the headline “Ferrari F10 Steering Wheel Looks Like a Robot Barfed on It.”
Here’s the vid about it too. Enjoy.
Yes, the world has another after-the-fact design modification to add to its motley collection of hacks, patches, fixes, taped-on signs, and Sharpie-improved user interfaces.
Found at the Kent State University bookstore, where I ducked in to buy an umbrella during a downpour. I was there to do some customer observations for a product line I’m working on, and had to walk between buildings in a solid rain storm.
Notice the attention to detail on the mod. The counter clerks must’ve really been tired of walking people through the transaction flow. They even highlighted “BLUE LIGHTS” with blue marker, just so people would get the message.
This is nine kinds of awesome.
I know, I know, this is how “The Design of Everyday Things” starts. The difference is that I found this instance at my local bank. The whole “Wells Fargo experience” is chock full of questionable design actually; I’ve struggled with elements of their web site, physical branch locations and ATM’s.
But it’s always good to catch one of those classic design gotchas in the wild, as it were. So look upon it and know that as long as there are problems out there like this, there’s work for those of us who try to make the world a more user-friendly place.
And yes, every time I leave the bank I pull the damn handle. And that’s because physical affordances are more salient and engaging than labels and signs.
I asked the bank employees how many people pull instead of push, and they just sort of heaved a collective sigh. I took that to mean “a lot”.
I’ve gotten more UX mileage out of that bank than you’d believe…
Back about two years ago I was working on a product line that took a number of potentially objectionable actions with customers’ systems. I pushed back against the product teams, saying that these actions put our products at risk of being perceived as malware.
They in turn pushed back on me, essentially telling me to prove my allegations.
So I went away for a few days, did some research, and returned with my (fanfare) Malware Perception Risk Assessment Tool. Ta-da!
Uh, sorry, I meant “thud”. It went over like a lead ballon. No takers. So I wrote it up in an article at UXmatters, hoping it’d become adopted. More deafening silence. Dejection.
But here’s the thing: systems are becoming more and more interconnected, and more than ever, applications are utilizing aspects of your personal, semi-public, and public data to derive value (presumably for you as well as themselves). Thus the risk of an application being perceived as malware has only increased.
I strongly believe that our field needs to provide the wider world with a tool that can help assess the risk that a particular product or service might be tagged as malware in the minds of users or the market at large.
So I again submit to the UX, dev, and product management communities the Malware Risk Assessment Checklist.
To measure the probability of people perceiving a product as malware, I created a checklist representing a set of attributes that typically characterize malware. I grouped these attributes into these five categories, each containing two or more representative attributes:
This time, I’m explicitly calling out the fact that the checklist is light on data propagation via social networking applications. And I’m asking for help in rounding out that aspect of the checklist. So help a guy out and suggest some social media items. I am releasing this checklist under a “Creative Commons non-commercial share alike-derivative works permitted” license, so you can remix this, add to it, etc. When I receive some good item suggestions, I’ll re-roll the list and publish again.
Here’s the checklist as it stood in 2008. Peeps, have at it.
Personal Information Gathering and Usage
The product or Web site…
Gathers and transmits users’ personal data or information about users’ behavior to the organization providing the product
____Yes
____No
Gathers and transmits users’ personal data or information about users’ behavior to a third party.
____Yes
____No
Uses personal data and data the product developer obtained from third parties to assemble profiles of users that are more complete and comprehensive than users expect.
____Yes
____No
Exposes more of users’ personal information to their contacts or a community than users expected or wanted.
____Yes
____No
Does any of the above without user notification and consent.
____Yes
____No
Does any of the above and does not allow users to opt out.
____Yes
____No
Modification of Data or System Configuration
The product or Web site…
Overwrites, modifies, or destroys users’ data without their knowledge or consent.
____Yes
____No
Modifies other applications on users’ computers or their operating system settings or computing environment.
____Yes
____No
Fails to restore modifications to other applications, operating system settings, or the computing environment when the user uninstalls the product.
____Yes
____No
Damages or renders inoperative other software or hardware on users’ computing systems.
____Yes
____No
Stealth and Resistance to Removal or Modification
The product or Web site…
Hides or renders its files and resources inaccessible to the user through normal means—that is, using standard file managers and viewers.
____Yes
____No
Resists attempts at removal.
____Yes
____No
Modifies antivirus, antispyware, and other computing hygiene applications or application settings, to make itself appear harmless or less harmful than it actually is.
____Yes
____No
Resource Utilization
The product or Web site…
Overuses computing resources—CPU, GPU, memory, and so on—to a noticeable extent.
____Yes
____No
Utilizes computing resources for purposes not directly related to the tasks users typically perform with the software.
____Yes
____No
Transparency and Disclosure of Third-Party Relationships
The product or Web site…
Installs third-party applications that demonstrate any of the above behaviors.
____Yes
____No
Installs third-party applications without user notification and consent.
____Yes
____No
C’mon people, let’s make this checklist useful, and maybe even a de facto standard.
I used to be a semi-professional musician. For a variety of reasons I didn’t stick with the professional part. I still play, mostly for my daughters and to keep my fingers limber. But my repertoire has gone to crud.
That happens when you don’t play for an audience anymore. You just forget most of the songs you’ve learned. I can honestly say that I do *not* miss the low pay, late hours, and second-hand smoke. But when I was single, let’s just say I definitely benefited from the pull that singing and playing guitar had with the ladies.
Ahem. Anyway, the point of the post is this: musical equipment has gotten so complex, usability is now a selling point for certain manufacturers whose product lines have been criticized as too hard to use.
(But they look cool, and I definitely want me one…see for yourself…)
Alas, RTFM…
Even GarageBand gives me conniptions. I just want to lay down some beats and play along with them. But I’ve fallen cleanly into the gulf of execution – I know what I want to do, but have no way of divining *how* to do it. And that’s a big bummer.
Um, OK, whatever floats your digital boat. You require elevation, I need a face full of chocolate cookies, we all have our needs. Live and let elevate, I say. That’s my motto credo words to live by.
<Colombo>There’s just one more thing…and you’ll have to forgive me, I’m slow with this kind of stuff…what exactly are you elevating? If ya don’t mind me asking of course. It’s just that I don’t understand exactly. </Columbo>
(Whoosh is the sound that last paragraph makes as it sails over the heads of the 20-somethings…)
Just kidding around here folks, I assume it’s referring to elevated permission levels. But still.
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